1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to content management systems, and more specifically relates to a content management system that autonomically generates rules.
2. Background Art
A content management system (CMS) allows many users to efficiently share electronic content such as text, audio files, video files, pictures, graphics, etc. Content management systems typically control access to content in a repository. A user may generate content, and when the content is checked into the repository, the content is checked by the CMS to make sure the content conforms to predefined rules. A user may also check out content from the repository, or link to content in the repository while generating content. The rules in a CMS assure that content to be checked in or linked to meets desired criteria specified in the rules.
Known content management systems check their rules when content is being checked in. If the rule is satisfied, the content is checked into the repository. If the rule is not satisfied, the content is not checked into the repository. Known content management systems may include rules related to bursting, synchronization and linking. Bursting rules govern how a document is bursted, or broken into individual chunks, when the document is checked into the repository. By bursting a document into chunks, the individual chunks may be potentially reused later by a different author. Synchronization rules govern synchronization between content and metadata related to the content. For example, a synchronization rule may specify that whenever a specified CMS attribute is changed, a particular piece of XML in the content should be automatically updated with that attribute's value. Linking rules govern what content in a repository a user may link to in a document that will be subsequently checked into the repository. In a typical CMS, a CMS administrator specifies the rules that apply to documents checked into the repository. As the CMS grows and matures, the CMS administrator typically defines new rules or changes existing rules according to the changes in the CMS. This process of manually generating new rules as conditions in a CMS change is inefficient and prone to human errors. Without a way for a CMS to autonomically generate rules according to content already in the repository, the computer industry will continue to be plagued by the inefficiency of requiring a human CMS administrator to manually specify rules in a CMS.